Disneyland

Haunted Mansion: Endless Hallway and Conservatory

The first scene of the ride is an endless hallway with a candelabra floating in the middle.

At the end of the hallway, you can, at times, just make out a row of passing Doom Buggies. This is a glimpse of Doom Buggies for guests who went down the second stretching gallery elevator, which explains why -- on low-crowd days -- they can be seen to be empty.

The mechanism used to levitate the candelabra is quite clever. It is too complex for us to go into in detail here, but it involves liquid-nitrogen-cooled super-conducting magnets and some string.

Guests who look carefully will see that he hallway ceiling in this area is a scrim -- that is, it's thin cloth with a ceiling painted on it. Above this scrim is a catwalk from which cast members can keep an eye on guests. The catwalk was placed here because this is where naughty guests begin to feel like they can't be seen and try to get out of their vehicle, start undressing or, worst of all, turn on their camera's flash.

After passing the hall, the Doom Buggy turns to reveal a conservatory in which a guest who did not obey park rules is trying to escape a coffin. It is interesting to note that there is no conservatory visible from outside the mansion. Nobody seems to know why Evergreen House had one in its basement.